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Fear The Walking Dead Season 5, Episode 2 Review: 'The Hurt That Will Happen'

Fear The Walking Dead has gone all Chernobyl in its fifth season, introducing us to a new region impacted by a nuclear plant meltdown. Radioactive zombies roam the land and various mysterious clues point toward a new, highly organized group that's almost certainly related to the people who took Rick Grimes away in Season 9 of The Walking Dead.

I was not a big fan of Fear The Walking Dead's Season 5 premiere, breaking with my fellow critics, all of whom apparently really liked the episode. (It had a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes until they added my review into the mix, dropping it down to a 93%).

I hate to rain on anyone's parade (well, that's not strictly true) but I can't help speaking my mind. I'm a critic, not a sycophant. The Season 5 premiere wasn't the worst episode this show has ever produced, but the characters are just so ridiculous at this point, and the entire premise ("We're here to help!") is astonishingly lame and contrived. It becomes hard to watch without a great deal of eye-rolling.

This Sunday's episode, the awkwardly titled "The Hurt That Will Happen", isn't much better. There are still too many instances of characters behaving like idiots and the whole thing remains brutally boring—and honestly, a show with radioactive zombies shouldn't be boring! I don't think people were quite as stupid this week as last—nobody flew a plane they had no idea how to pilot, crash-landing in a completely unknown region in order to "help" some guy they "met" on the radio. That's so egregiously moronic that it pretty much ruined last week's episode right out of the gates. I don't think people were quite as stupid this week as last—nobody flew a plane they had no idea how to pilot, crash-landing in a completely unknown region in order to "help" some guy they "met" on the radio. That's so egregiously moronic that it pretty much ruined last week's episode right out of the gates.

But we still have plenty of stupid in Episode 2. Luciana, for instance, decides to go outside by herself to see what a large crashing noise was. I can understand taking a quick peak—it was the radio tower, blown over by non-existent wind or maybe wind that only blows over large objects, skipping over more mundane things like human hair—but then she just stays outside. In the dark. By herself, injured and alone.

When zombies approach, she doesn't hurry back inside to safety, the clear and obvious thing to do when you're injured and on meds that impact your cognitive functions. Instead she pulls out her gun and tries to shoot the walkers. I get that she was doped up and not thinking clearly, but even in a doped up state your first instinct is going to be running away because people on painkillers usually do understand that they're not at their best. Luciana knew perfectly well that she wasn't going to be a great fighter in her current state. The only conceivable reason why she'd stay outside to fight walkers is because the show is actively trying to make her (and every other character) look stupid. She makes it back, but only just barely. The pursuing walkers are later decapitated by someone—it's a mystery—their heads hung up as some kind of warning to the survivors (helpers?).

While all this is going on, Morgan and Alicia are out trying to find Al who went missing last week when she stupidly went out at night in the rain all alone to investigate the weird armored zombie and got knocked out by someone. Maybe the same someone who cut off those heads, maybe someone else. Either way, not Al's shining moment. (Later, Daniel says that Al can take care of herself, but I'm not so sure).

In any case, Morgan gets into a scuffle with a zombie and is suddenly tripped up by a set of bolas that someone threw at him. I had to watch it twice to fully tell what just happened. It's a pretty weird weapon to have especially for this new character. The zombie is making things tough on Morgan but then a gun goes off and a stranger dressed in a gas mask and protective science-uniform-outfit shows up and tells him to take his clothes off and stop talking. She doesn't have time to explain, but basically the zombies are radioactive and he needs to get cleaned up right away or he could get radiation poisoning just from making physical contact with them.

She tells him to be quiet because apparently talking can make it worse, and when he keeps asking questions she raises her gun and says something about not wanting to do it this way—so I guess she was going to shoot him for talking? In order to help him? I'm confused. I guess it doesn't matter what she was about to do because Alicia comes in like a bat out of hell and knocks her to the ground, demanding where she took Al. She tells them about the nuclear plant meltdown and the radiation zombies that she's hunting down. Morgan gets cleaned up and spends the rest of the episode in a "Don't Mess With Texas" shirt which is pretty funny.

Alicia gets in a fight with some zombies, some of which are radioactive and some who aren't—"I can't tell which is which!" she cries out at one point after the zombies get all muddy. She has a gun because she took it from the nuclear plant lady, but for some strange reason she doesn't use it. She ends up tossing it back to the lady because I guess you're not allowed to fire someone else's gun in the zombie apocalypse. I just don't know anymore. It's a close call for Alicia who, well, handled the whole thing pretty poorly for no reason whatsoever.

Not long after, John Dorie and June radio them (what would they do in this show without all these radios?) and tell them they've found more of the radioactive zombies, all burned in a pile. So they head over there to deal with it and June finds a car that starts up just fine and has three-quarters of a tank of gas. How convenient for them!

Still, they're all waiting on Strand to find a second plane to come save them with because I guess driving is just not an option for some reason. Seriously, can someone please let me know why driving to get them isn't on the table? Strand and his trucker pals have a truck and an endless supply of gas. Just go drive to wherever they are and pick them up. Yes, it will take longer to drive. The silver lining, however, is that driving won't result in yet another plane crash. Nobody can fly a plane!

Hasn't anyone pointed this out yet? Haven't they all learned that flying a plane when you don't know how is a bad idea? Do they ever sit around and talk about actually important stuff or is all dialogue reserved for Morgan's preachy mumbo jumbo about being "stuck" and not having to be, and opening doors and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz . . .

Fortunately, when Strand goes to visit Daniel, the grouchy realist doesn't lend him his plane. "Whenever you try to help people, you make things worse," he tells Strand, and he's not wrong. Certainly taking the plane and trying to fly it would end badly. Daniel tells Strand that if he sees him again he'll shoot him in the face. I really do love Daniel, but I'm not sure how he'll figure in to the rest of the season, unless Strand plans some kind of elaborate caper to steal the plane and Daniel is dragged back into all this nonsense against his will.

Of course, by the time all that goes down they definitely could have driven to wherever Alicia and the rest of the team are, presumably still in Texas given Morgan's replacement shirt. They were going to drive all the way to Alexandria, they can drive to this place instead. Or they could all hop in June's car and drive themselves back home. This is what I mean when I say I just can't get behind this season's premise or overarching narrative. It's stupid to fly a plane when you don't know how, especially if you're doing it to go "rescue" complete strangers. It's far too risky for any sane person, and it's far too stupid for any thinking person with half a brain. The show's producers and writers ignore all that for the spectacle and for the fake conflict it creates.

What fake conflict? Well, the notion that Alicia and her crew are stuck, first of all. They can find cars with gas easily enough and drive themselves home. Second, the notion that Strand needs to find a second plane—which just so happens to be with Daniel, the guy that hates Strand more than anyone—is a fake conflict. Strand could also simply drive to his friends using his trucker buddies. The whole Strand meeting up with Daniel thing is also ridiculously contrived. Al has apparently met every single possible survivor of the apocalypse. Better still, every survivor from the dam just happened to end up hundreds of miles away in Texas. What luck!

The final fake conflict is only fake because of all the contrivances and nonsense used to get us to this point. I'm speaking of Logan (Matt Frewer) and his little prank. He tricked Alicia and Morgan into leaving the mill unguarded and then swooped in when they left. It's a clever idea and I'd have no problem with it if it didn't require all the protagonists to be such monumentally foolish people. Sometimes being foolish or making a poor choice creates a real conflict, because sometimes smart people do stupid things. Think Robb Stark and his poor choices with the Freys in Game of Thrones. That had consequences. But if Game of Thrones built all its conflicts around characters acting uncharacteristically stupid, it would get old very quickly. Robb's mistake was falling in love and that's pretty relatable. Our heroes in Fear made a much less relatable mistake with the plane (etc).

Creating contrived conflicts based on characters acting like idiots seems to be the narrative strategy in Fear The Walking Dead in virtually all of its seasons except Season 3. Because let's be honest: Fear The Walking Dead did not have a great first or second season. Madison caused far too much trouble everywhere she went to be considered a good leader. I always think back to the episode when they showed up at that island and Madison was convinced that the best idea would be for her to take the family's kids away from them and then pretty much everyone died in a totally unnecessary disaster. By the end of Season 2 I thought they should just cancel it and start over, and then I ate my words when Season 3 was so good.

Season 3 crafted a much more interesting conflict between the Native Americans and the survivalists. It was over water and land and nobody was clearly good or clearly evil. I loved how much the show improved in Season 3 and I'm just so bummed out that it's gone so far (back) downhill first in Season 4 and now Season 5. Season 4 had such a promising first few episodes, too, but quickly lost its way. Now we're two episodes deep into Season 5 and it's just . . . not very good. It's not as bad as it was during the Martha episodes, but it really should be so much better. AMC really needs to hire more talented writers and producers for this show. The acting is largely fine, the special effects are good, the cinematography and directing are typically fine. It's the scripts, the story, the constant stupidity and inconsistencies, that drag into down into the zombie muck. Mostly it's just dull and frustrating to watch. Hopefully things pick up next week.

#ftwd #fear the walking dead #season 5 #episode 502 #review #article #forbes #aheartfulloflexa #camila

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aion-rsa · 6 years ago

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Game of Thrones: 24 Book Characters Not in the Show

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Game of Thrones Season 8 is nearly here, but with it, the number of characters from George R.R. Martin's novels who've been skipped grows.

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Books

Marc Buxton

Game of Thrones

Apr 3, 2019

HBO

George R.R. Martin

A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones Season 8

So, you thought HBO’s Game of Thrones had a ton of characters, huh? For seven seasons now, fans of HBO’s epic have gotten out their scorecards to keep track of all the Starks, Lannisters, Tullys, Wildlings, Greyjoys, Boltons, Freys, and the rest of the residents of Westeros.

But believe it or not Game of Thrones fans (and any “A Song of Ice and Fire” reader will attest to this), there have been a metric ton of George R.R. Martin characters that have not yet popped up on the series, despite appearing in the novels’ corresponding events. That’s right; there is a legion of fighters, rogues, small folk, lords, and ladies that never got that chance to realize that the HBO night is dark and full of highly rated terror.

Whether showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss wanted to tighten the narrative or to simplify things (HA!) for the hourlong installments of Game of Thrones is not for us to say. But we can attest that in some cases, TV fans have missed out on some pretty fascinating players of the Seven Kingdoms and beyond. So join us as we delve into the literary world of “A Song of Ice and Fire,” and present to you some conspicuously absent Game of Thrones characters. But be warned, this article is dark and filled with spoilers, so if you want to stay blissfully ignorant, sound the retreat now, my dear Summer child.

Strong Belwas

One of the most notable exclusions on TV’s Game of Thrones is the gigantic gladiator Strong Belwas. He was sent by Illyrio Mopatis (the dude that originally arranged the marriage of Daenerys to Khal Drogo) to be Daenerys’ new bodyguard. With Belwas came an old squire named Arstan Whitebeard, who turned out to be Barristan Selmy in disguise (hence his literary introduction to Dany).

So, the show kept the Selmy angle but jettisoned Belwas, which is a damn shame because the gigantic pit fighter provides some awesome comic relief to the otherwise usually terse Daenerys in Meereen scenes. When Daenerys arrives in Meereen in season 4 of Game of Thrones, the city sends out its champion to face Khaleesi’s chosen warrior. In the show, Daenerys chooses Daario Naharis to be her champion, but in the book, she does not want to risk the handsome rogue. Nor does she want to choose her trusted advisors Selmy or Jorah Mormont, so she selects Belwas, figuring that if Meereen’s champion defeats a former slave like Belwas, there will be no glory in it.

read more: Game of Thrones Season 8 - Everything We Know

Daenerys needn’t have worried; Belwas drew the champion out by taking a gigantic dump in front of the city of Meereen (I’m not kidding) and then easily dispatches his opponent. Other than killing, all Belwas really does is eat. He is fiercely loyal to his Khaleesi and can often be seen by her side wearing his signature tiny vest and genie pants. Many fans were disappointed by Belwas’ exclusion, because I think many fans secretly wanted to see a giant gladiator in genie pants poop in front of a majestic city.

Fan image by sprrow.

Victarion Greyjoy

One of the major subplots of the books not to make it in the television series is the full saga of the Greyjoy family while they vie for control of the Iron Islands following Balon Greyjoy’s death. Euron eventually showed up, but in a truncated introduction that awkwardly combined him and Victarion.

Victarion is, in the books, the bravest of the Greyjoy siblings who are trying to win the kingship of the Iron Islands. He is a skilled sailor and a natural born leader. One of the highlights of A Feast for Crows is the Kingsmoot held to name a new king of the Iron Islands. In truth, Victarion would probably be the most suitable king, but his conniving brother Euron Greyjoy wins the day, much as he does against Yara in the series. Victarion hates Euron but supports his claim out of loyalty to his family.

read more: Game of Thrones Season 8 Predictions and Theories

This is where things get interesting: Euron demands that Victarion sail across the Narrow Sea and offer a proposal of marriage to none other than the Mother of Dragons herself--an aspect that was only teased and then discarded in the series. At this point in the books though, Victarion has grown disgusted with Euron’s cruelty and plans to woo Daenerys himself. This kicks of an adventure in A Dance with Dragons where Victarion meets a Red Priest of R’hllor who informs the Greyjoy that there is a way to bind Daenerys’ dragons to his will. So in the books, this non-TV character actually becomes a threat or perhaps a potential ally to the Silver Queen.

Image by Matt Olson.

Big Walder and Little Walder Frey

Big Walder Frey and Little Walder Frey were two of the Frey family that dwelled in Winterfell. When Catelyn and Robb Stark treated with the Freys to allow Robb’s army to ford the Crossing at the Twins, the senior Frey included the fostering of Little Walder at Winterfell. He was accompanied by Big Walder, and the two became friends with Rickon Stark.

Bran, Jojen Reed, and Meera Reed did not take kindly to these two Freys as both were brutish bullies. Little Walder is the larger of the pair, but both were skilled fighters who enjoyed pushing others around. The two can be seen as a bit of foreshadowing of the cruel nature of the Freys, something Robb and Catelyn would soon discover at the Red Wedding. The two Walders are also a good example of why “A Song of Ice and Fire” is insanely confusing: there are three characters with the exact same name featured in prominent roles. Maybe, that’s why Martin takes so long writing these books? He confuses himself.

Later on in the novels, Little Walder becomes a squire to Ramsay Bolton, which cannot be fun at all. Fans of the show must be content with just one Walder Frey.

Left and Right

Erryk and Arryk, or “Left and Right,” are the loyal bodyguards of Lady Olenna Tyrell, the Queen of Thorns. They are heavily armed brutes that are fiercely loyal to their Lady. On the other hand, the Queen of Thorns can’t be bothered to remember her guards’ names so she just refers to them as Left and Right. These two warriors are a reminder just how dangerous Lady Olenna could be despite her advanced age. If you mess with this rose, Lady Olenna has two giant pricks to make sure you bleed. On TV, the Queen of Thorns does her own pricking.

Jeyne Westerling

Jeyne Westerling has never appeared on TV, nor will she because her part in the drama, that of Robb Stark’s wife, was usurped by Talisa Maegyr.

Unlike poor Talisa, Jeyne does not attend the Red Wedding and is still alive deep into the books. While Benioff and Weiss gave Talisa a fascinating backstory, and a memorable character arc, Jeyne was kind of just a plot point—a reason that Robb does not marry one of Walder Frey’s daughters.

Robb meets Jeyne after he suffers a minor wound during a battle and takes refuge in her family’s small castle. The Westerlings are Lannister bannermen, so Robb basically takes them hostage, but Jeyne is kind to the King in the North and takes deep pity on him when he finds out that Theon Greyjoy “killed” his brothers Bran and Rickon at Winterfell.

Jeyne is a devoted and simple woman who loves Robb unconditionally but is overwhelmed by the conflict around her. When Robb died, Jeyne went into a deep mourning and is ordered by the Lannisters not to marry for two years, lest people thing she produced an heir with the fallen boy king. It’s hard to imagine the Red Wedding being worse than it was in the books, but slaughtering a pregnant Talisa (poor Ned Junior) to kick off the carnage was a much more brutal fate than that suffered by Robb Stark’s literary wife.

Image by Kurotsuta Murasaki.

Edric Storm

There were certainly many of Robert Baratheon’s bastards to go around in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels. Edric Storm was one such by-blow who lived first at Storm’s End and later on Dragonstone, the land ruled by Stannis Baratheon.

On television, the story of Edric was folded into that of Gendry since Arya’s blacksmith buddy became the all-purpose Baratheon bastard. In the books, Edric went through roughly the same ordeal that Gendry did on the series: he was tortured by the Red Witch Melisandre, who leeched him and used his blood to curse Kings Robb Stark, Joffrey Baratheon, and Balon Greyjoy; Like television’s Gendry, Edric was saved from being burned by the Red Witch thanks to Ser Davos Seaworth, the Onion Knight.

But to simplify things, Benioff and Weiss made Gendry and Edric one, but in the world of the books, Edric stands as a testament to the mighty libido of King Robert Baratheon.

Image by Xtreme1992.

Vargo Hoat

On HBO, Vargo Hoat was ostensibly replaced by the evil Locke, the vicious mercenary who dared to cut off the hand of the Kingslayer. As fans know, Locke then forced Brienne of Tarth to fight a giant bear in a pit. Locke was every inch the thug and bully that Hoat was in the book, but Hoat suffers a much darker fate than his TV counterpart. Yeah, Locke’s television demise was violent (a Bran-possessed Hodor nearly popped his evil head off), but it pales in comparison to the bodily atrocity that was inflicted on Hoat.

read more: Ranking All the Game of Thrones Villains

In the book, Hoat tries to rape Brienne before feeding her to the bear, but the tough as nails Brienne bit his ear off. Hoat’s wound festers and he becomes delirious but is still determined to hold the Keep of Herrenhal. When the Mountain Gregor Clegane arrives to take the keep back for Tywin Lannister, Clegane finds the delirious and defiant Hoat. The Mountain orders his men to slowly slice pieces of Hoat’s body away and bandage the wounds so the mercenary lives through the horrific ordeal. The Mountain then feeds the pieces to Hoat and the other prisoners, and makes sure that his captive lives to suffer for many days.

Being crushed by Hodor is no day at the beach, but the Mountain made sure that Hoat’s book death was one of the most brutal and disturbing in ASOIAF’s history.

Image by Joel Chaim Holtzman.

Dale, Allard, and Maric Seaworth

In Game of Thrones, Matthos Seaworth, the beloved son of Ser Davos, the Onion Knight, dies in the battle of the Black Water in a furious storm of wildfire. In the books, namely in A Clash of Kings, Davos is the sire of four sons who died in Tyrion Lannister’s wildfire trap. The literary deaths of his four boys were almost too much for Davos to bear, but the ever-loyal Onion Knight continues to fight in his sons’ memory despite his tremendous loss.

Patchface

Patchface is one of the most chilling characters introduced in A Clash of Kings. Patchface (or Patches) was once a famed jester, known far and wide in the Seven Kingdoms. The famous fool was on his way to Dragonstone to entertain the young Baratheon children when his ship broke up, killing all aboard. Except for Patchface that is, who washed ashore days later hopelessly insane and babbling about undead creatures and ancient evils that live in the waters. So the humorless Stannis grew up with a mad fool who babbled about the things down below.

This adds to the cold and emotionless nature of Stannis Baratheon, who never learned to laugh because his childhood fool went mad. Patchface has his face tattooed in motley and can barely function, but he is a constant companion to Stannis’ daughter, the deformed Princess Shireen who still can find humor in the ravings of a madman. But not on Game of Thrones, where the things down below go unmentioned because there is no mad Patchface to sing their tale.

Image by jesterry.

Jinglebell (Aegon Frey)

Speaking of jesters, in the books, Jingebell was the grandson of Walder Fey. He was a mentally disabled young man who entertained his guests in his fool’s motley at the Red Wedding. When the carnage began, Catelyn Stark grabbed Jinglebell and put her knife to his throat, begging the elder Frey to spare Robb’s life. Walder says that he would gladly trade a half-wit grandson for the life of Robb Stark. As Robb is slaughtered, Catelyn cuts the cognitively impaired jester’s throat.

It was a moment of pure, emotionless rage for Catelyn Stark and was a clue of things to come for the Lady of Riverrun. But in the television series, Catelyn threatened one of Frey’s young wives and cut her throat when Robb is killed. I guess Game of Thrones has something against jesters as both Jinglebell and Patchface, memorable fools both, were left out of the show.

Image by Morgan King.

Lady Stoneheart

One of the most unforgettable moments in A Storm of Swords and the whole “A Song of Fire and Ice series” is the epilogue reveal of Lady Stoneheart. In the final chapter of A Storm of Swords, a cravenly member of the Frey family gets abducted by the Brotherhood Without Banners, the group of freedom fighters led by Beric Dondarion. Beric is conspicuous by his absence, but the rest of the Brotherhood is present and led by a cloaked figure. The cloaked figure passes sentence on the Frey and pulls its hood back revealing the ruined, dead face of Lady Catelyn Stark! Calling herself Lady Stoneheart, Catelyn now has to hold her ravaged throat together to speak and is completely devoid of humanity or emotion.

read more: Game of Thrones - 9 Book Changes That Were an Improvement

She has become the most vengeful and bloodthirsty character in the Game of Thrones saga, and is a threat to anyone whom Catelyn Stark once deemed an enemy. Benioff and Weiss have chosem not to spring Lady Stoneheart on us, which has divided fans ever since.

Image by Zippo514.

Reek (First of His Name)

Fans saw the transformation of Theon Greyjoy to Reek in Game of Thrones season 3, but TV fans might not be aware that Theon was not the first Reek to be featured in the novels.

In A Clash of Kings, it was revealed that Ramsay Snow, the bastard of Bolton once terrorized the North, raping and pillaging with his murderous companion, an odorous monster named Reek. The residents of the North thought that Reek was arrested and imprisoned in Winterfell, but the Bastard of Bolton still roamed the countryside. When Theon Greyjoy takes Winterfell and is in danger of being slaughtered by Stark bannermen, Theon frees Reek who promises to bring Ramsay Snow and his men to aid Greyjoy. When Reek returns, it is revealed that he was actually Ramsay Snow the whole time.

The newly revealed Ramsay betrays and imprisons Theon, and Greyjoy’s torturous road begins. The original Reek disguised himself as Ramsay and sacrificed himself so the bastard could live. All that is known about the original Reek was that he smells like excrement and is a vicious killer. Whether he was tortured and transformed into Reek like Theon, or whether Theon’s transformation into Reek is a tribute to Ramsay’s first Reek, has not been revealed. But what is known is that the legend of Reek began the story of the Bastard of Bolton. The TV series simplified Ramsay’s story and made Theon the first Reek and Game of Thrones’ version of Gollum.

Arianne Martell

Arianne Martell, the sister of Oberyn Martell, is the central Dornish character after Oberyn’s shocking death at the hands of the Mountain. Arianne is stunningly beautiful and a young woman who has great ambition. She was originally going to be married to Viserys Targaryen, Daenerys’ weasel brother, but Khal Drogo’s golden crown put an end to all that.

read more: Game of Thrones Season 8 - Who Lives and Who Dies

Arianne is horrified by Oberyn’s violent death and plots revenge using Cersei’s daughter Princess Myrcella in a complex power play that results in many startling Dornish secrets being revealed. After Oberyn’s death, George R.R. Martin’s Dornish subplot centers on Arianne, so it was a bit of a surprise that Game of Thrones shifted much of her storyline in a broad sense to Oberyn’s consort Ellaria Sand. But the looseness of a bastard replacing the role of a highborn is one of many indications that the writing around Dorne left something to be desired in Game of Thrones Season 5.

Image by Arys Oakheart.

Aurane Waters

Aurane Waters fought for Stannis Baratheon, but is pardoned after he bent the knee to King Joffrey after the Battle of the Blackwater. Soon, Aurane becomes a favorite of one Cersei Lannister, who makes him admiral of the King’s fleet. He soon joins the Small Counsel of King Tommen and becomes a major player in King’s Landing. Waters takes part in many of Cersei’s machinations but has yet to join the king’s court on television. It appears some of his functions were transferred over to Euron Greyjoy in season 7 of the TV series.

Onsey, Osmund, and Osfryd Kettleblack

Aurane Waters is not the only consort of Cersei Lannister to not make the television series.

Osney, Osmund, and Osfryd Kettleblack are three ambitious brothers and sellswords (turned supposed knights) who are used in Cersei's machinations to disgrace her courtier enemies. They are the main chess pieces in a game between two ambitious queens and are a major part of the courtly intrigue in King's Landing. When things go pear-shaped for Cersei, the Kettleblacks were a major part of her fall from grace. The show opted to go for a less 1:1 comparison between Cersei's scheme against Margaery Tyrell and England's Anne Boleyn, which was much more visible in the books as we detailed here. Instead of creating false witnesses of alleged lovers of the young queen, Cersei merely roped Margaery into Loras Tyrell's trial as a gay man (which is also different from how he is villified by Cersei in the books, as well as how he is disposed of by the ruthless Queen Mother).

Image by Pojypojy.

Jeyne Poole

Jeyne Poole was Sansa Stark’s best friend when she lived in Winterfell. Think of Jeyne and Sansa as the Westerosi version of Heathers. With Sansa, Jeyne took great pleasure in mocking Arya Stark and was a major part of Sansa’s more innocent (if less endearing) days. Jeyne Poole returns as part of Ramsay Bolton’s grand plan for Winterfell and is forced to endure Ramsay’s heinous predilections when she marries Ramsay under the false identity of Arya Stark. Jeyne Poole’s fate is not a happy one, much like how Ramsay treats Sansa in Game of Thrones, albeit with more graphic cruelty in the novel. Last we saw Jeyen, she and Theon are making a desperate escape from Winterfell, much like Sansa and Theon did at the end of season 5.

Image by JeynePooleEsp.

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theconservativebrief · 6 years ago

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The next two weeks are some of the busiest on the TV calendar, with nearly two dozen new series debuting across broadcast, cable, and streaming networks.

Some of these releases are among the most high-profile shows their networks have on offer, including NBC’s big bet at finding the next ER. And some of them are quirky little half-hour dramas imported from Australia. But we’ve watched all of them — and everything else that’s around — and we’re highlighting the ones we think are the most interesting.

Few of these shows are great, and we often have limited information on whether they’ll get better. (It’s rare-to-impossible for broadcast networks, especially, to send out many episodes to critics beyond the first couple.) But there’s something inside all of these shows worth checking out, especially if you’re a particular fan of their genres.

Read on for thoughts on CBS’s FBI, NBC’s New Amsterdam, FX’s Mr. Inbetween, and ABC’s A Million Little Things. We’ll be back later in the week with thoughts on shows debuting between Thursday and Sunday.

(A note: We’ve only given ratings to shows where we feel we’ve seen enough episodes to judge how successful they will be long-term, which for right now is just Mr. Inbetween.)

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TV super-producer Dick Wolf has launched two franchises that completely took over NBC. The first was Law & Order, which launched five spinoffs (as well as a recently announced sixth, Law & Order: Hate Crimes). One spinoff, Law & Order: SVU, has now run almost as long as the original — 434 episodes to the original’s 456 (it should catch up in May of 2019).

And then there’s the Chicago franchise, spun off of Chicago Fire; it now encompasses four shows, three of which are still running.

The point is: Dick Wolf knows how to make an iron-clad procedural, even if his premise is as vague as, “Here are some FBI agents.” And now that Wolf has joined forces with CBS — a network that never met a crime-solving drama it couldn’t turn into a big hit — to make a show about those very FBI agents, it’s not hard to imagine the two could make beautiful, bloody corpses together. (This is the first series Wolf has produced for a network other than NBC since a 2003 reboot of Dragnet for ABC.)

Whether you enjoy FBI will depend heavily on how happy you are to consume stories as un-skeptical of law enforcement as this one, or on how much seeing Wolf’s signature font in the closing credits will fill you with happy memories of long, wintry Saturdays watching episode after episode of vintage Law & Order.

But as always, the show is brilliantly cast (putting Missy Peregrym at the FBI’s center suggests Wolf has found his new Mariska Hargitay), perfectly paced, and solidly constructed. Is it great TV? Nah. But it’s highly competent TV, and that counts for something in this day and age. —Todd VanDerWerff

FBI debuts Tuesday, September 25, at 9 pm Eastern on CBS.

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I kept watching New Amsterdam, NBC’s new medical drama set in a public hospital that doesn’t turn away patients, thinking I had seen much of it before. On the one hand, I had — it’s hard to break new ground in the medical drama genre in the post-The Good Doctor, post-Grey’s Anatomy, post-ER, post-St. Elsewhere, post-Marcus Welby, M.D. universe. But even more specifically, the series feels like it’s riffing on Fox’s medical drama The Resident, now in its second season, which is too minor of a show to rip off.

But where The Resident and its doctors who care so much that they won’t stop trying to save lives!! are aggro in an irritating way, New Amsterdam takes some of that show’s ideas and pulls back on them just enough to become a fitting series to air right after NBC’s mega-hit This Is Us.

New Amsterdam, like This Is Us, is more interested in making you cry than anything else, and both series are busy, bustling shows with lots of characters who are wildly varied in terms of how compelling they are. Nobody is trying to reinvent the wheel, but maybe the wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented.

If there’s going to be something different about New Amsterdam, it will be thanks to the show’s central two characters, Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) and Dr. Hana Sharpe (Freema Agyeman). Goodwin is a no-nonsense reformer who takes over New Amsterdam Hospital and immediately starts ruffling feathers and making big changes — but he’s also got a big secret, one he’s only comfortable really sharing with Sharpe.

Again, nothing new here, and Eggold isn’t close to the level of Agyeman’s performance. But the details ring true, and the second episode improves on the first, which is always a good sign. —TV

New Amsterdam debuts Tuesday, September 25, at 10 pm Eastern on NBC. It’s weird that this show exists when there was a Fox drama about an immortal police officer of exactly the same name just 10 years ago, but you probably forgot that one existed, huh? It starred Jaime Lannister!

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As strange as it might sound, the market for hitman TV shows in 2018 is a crowded one. The latest on the scene is FX’s Mr. Inbetween, created by, written by, and starring Scott Ryan. It draws on a lot of what we’ve seen already this year in Barry, as Ray Shoesmith (Ryan) tries to balance the ins and outs of his job with his domestic life, though Mr. Inbetween is tonally a little closer to Killing Eve on its default level of darkness.

That’s not to say that Mr. Inbetween is lacking for laughs — if anything, the deadpan humor on which Ray operates is the main reason to tune in. Ryan’s performance is transfixing, as he’s hilarious and horrifying by turns. Bald, slightly gaunt, and sporting a grin that wouldn’t look amiss on the Joker, Ryan infuses Ray with a volatility that vaults him up to one of the more impressive turns of the year. He’s opaque in a way that his TV contemporaries aren’t, which makes it all the more frightening when he finally lashes out.

The story that’s built around him, however, isn’t quite as solid. The brevity of the season — it’s just six episodes long (all of which were sent out for review), with each episode clocking in at around 25 minutes — means that it moves at a neat clip.

This is to the show’s advantage as far as recommendations are concerned, but it also doesn’t leave a lot of time to accomplish all that much. Ryan is great, but Mr. Inbetween never manages to land on one side of the fence or the other as far as whether Ray is actually the force of justice that he seems to think himself to be.

The show also never reckons with the fact that there needs to be a little more meat on the bones of a story about a white man getting away with everything for it to really stick in a contemporary cultural landscape. But given how trim it is, Mr. Inbetween is charming enough, and Ryan’s performance shouldn’t be missed. —Karen Han

Mr. Inbetween debuts with two back-to-back episodes Tuesday, September 25, at 11:30 pm Eastern on FX, in between airings of Mayans M.C.

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A Million Little Things, ABC’s new drama about a group of friends dealing with a tragedy, is one of the first big network dramas to really feel like an attempt to copy what made This Is Us such a big hit.

And in brief, fitful moments throughout the first three episodes, it really does get at some interesting things about adult friendships, male bonding rituals, and the burden of mental illness. But it’s also a cautionary tale about what happens when network notes won’t just let a premise be.

In the opening moments of the show’s pilot, Jon (Ron Livingston) kills himself, interrupting the lives of his three best friends and their assorted loved ones and other compatriots. (Livingston will continue to appear throughout at least season one, in flashbacks and the like.)

The death affects each character differently, and the show’s most successful moments deal with how depression can affect a life, especially when Jon’s friend Rome (Romany Malco) sees in his friend’s suicide a reflection of his own suicidal ideation and finally decides to pursue therapy. It’s the sort of subject matter broadcast network dramas don’t always tackle, and rarely with the sort of emotional depth Things displays from time to time.

Unfortunately, the rest of the time, A Million Little Things is burdening itself with an over-busy mystery story about why Jon might have killed himself and the plan he set in motion to help take care of his friends after his death, which sometimes makes him feel like an all-seeing god and at other times makes him feel like a mildly cheeky ghost.

A Million Little Things shows that it understands how depression can hurt even people who seem to have it all together. So why does it need to have a big mystery about what John might have been up to, except for network fears that nobody would care about a group of friends learning to deal without one of them being there? (Yes, it’s similar to This Is Us, but that show kept the central death a mystery from the audience, not the characters, to deliberately mimic emotional repression. A Million Little Things has no similar creative justification.) It stands in the way of a show that would otherwise hold promise. —TV

A Million Little Things debuts Wednesday at 10 pm Eastern on ABC. No, it’s not based on the famous James Frey “memoir.” That’s A Million Little Pieces.

CBS’s Magnum P.I. (Monday, 9 pm) is a terminally boring reboot of the Hawaii-set detective drama. No show that begins with a man skydiving from space should be this uninvolving!

NBC’s Manifest (Monday, 10 pm) wastes a good premise — a plane experiences turbulence that seemingly transports it forward in time five years — in favor of weak-sauce family drama and mystical hooey.

ABC’s Single Parents (Wednesday, 9:30 pm) has a great cast (including Leighton Meester and Brad Garrett) and great creators (New Girl’s Elizabeth Meriweather and J.J. Philbin) but a pilot that tries to do way too much with a thin premise (a bunch of single parents hang out). Maybe it’ll get better?

Original Source -> 4 new TV shows to check out this week, from Australian hitmen to beleaguered doctors

via The Conservative Brief

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